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Re: [APD] Getting shot of Nitrate Xperiment
Following on with my continued testing of how fast various cycling bacteria
bottles actually take I thought this may interest people.
I bleached out the 17L test tank and all equipment (heater and internal
filter) and substrate for 8 hours and thoroughly rinsed out and put in 15L
of my soft tap water.
This is NH3/4 0, NO2 0, NO3 0, GH 1, KH 1, 26C at pH 6.8 with no chlorine or
chloramine in it.
So I added a little sodium bicarbonate (0.5 tsp) and 2 calcium carbonate
indigestion tablets (Sainsbury's Spearmint antacid tablets 500mg). Then I
added 5 drops of Ammonia to give a reading of 1ppm. This I left to settle in
for 8 hours before added the bottled bacteria.
I used 18ml of Safestart by TetraAqua 2 days ago.
(Bottle states add 5ml per 6L.)
I then had water with GH 5, KH 4, pH 7.6 at 26C.
I tested the water 15 hours later for NH3/4, NO2, NO3, pH with a API liquid
test kit. I got zero NH3/4, 0 NO2 and 0 NO3, pH 7.6 with very cloudy water.
This is unusual. I've often used Safestart to cycle a tank and never had
this cloud before.
I added another 1ppm of ammonia and retested 10 hours later. They were all
back to zero again. Still cloudy water.
I added yet more ammonia to get 1ppm and left for 12 hours and once more the
water parameters were back to zero again. But the water had cleared this time.
Looks like the Sucrose in the tablets had removed all the nitrate...?
The tablets packet ingredients state:
Calcium carbonate 500mg
Sucrose, Maize Starch, Calcium stearate, Spearmint flavour, Sodium
saccharin. No amounts though.
I've used these cheap tablets from my local store for years now to add a bit
of GH to my tanks.
So it looks like I have another fast cycled tank (within 12hours) and zero
nitrates.
Oh and Happy New Year! :-)
--
Stuart Halliday
http://mytriops.com/
200 Million years in the making...
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